As a traffic flow is forwarded over a data-plane of network, individual packets in the traffic flow are generally stored in packet buffers by network devices. A packet buffer is a memory space in a network device that is reserved for storing packets awaiting transmission or processing. A network device that receives, or otherwise generates, a packet will generally store the packet in a packet buffer of the network device until the network device is ready to transmit, or otherwise process, the packet. The manner in which the packet is buffered significantly affects the quality of service (QoS) experienced by the end-user.